The purposes of schooling are
changing now and will change more dramatically as we progress
into the twenty-first century. In societies characterized by
hunting and agrarian economies, children learned from observing
and imitating adults; in industrial societies, children learned
how to fit into the bureaucratic, hierarchical, factory system,
with everyone in one place from the beginning to the end of
the shift; but in an information-based society increasingly
dominated by technology, massive amounts of information will
be created, often without regard for quality or accuracy. Both
teacher and learner will need skills in accessing, evaluating,
and interpreting information from worldwide sources.
The impact of the digital revolution
will be profound and complex. In addition, changes in how we
go about everything we do will occur with breathtaking speed.
The Commerce Department's April 1998 report The
Emerging Digital Economy
states that radio existed for
thirty-eight years before fifty million people tuned in, while
television required thirteen years to reach the same benchmark.
Yet once the Internet was opened to the general public, it crossed
the fifty-million-user threshold in a mere-four years. By the
end of 1997, the report revealed, more than one hundred million
people were using the Internet, and traffic on it was doubling
every hundred days.
3
There will be ever-widening choices
of pedagogical and curricular approaches, most of which will
involve technology. The rise of computer technology, distance
education, telecommunications and television will impact the
speed and accuracy of the delivery of information to everyone
involved in the educational process. Computers will increase
the ability of musicians and nonmusicians to self-educate in
virtually every aspect of music.
In some ways, demands for greater
speed and accuracy of information will improve everyday life.
In other ways, these demands will only increase the distance
between the "haves" and the "have nots."
Those individuals who are at-risk because of poverty or illiteracy
will continue to be of great concern to societal institutions
like the public schools. As those who have the means to do so
choose options for schooling outside of the public sector, the
support for those at-risk may diminish.
Traditional textbooks will in
many cases be replaced by interactive multimedia systems approaches
(combined with heightened sensory stimulation such as 3-D sound
and wrap-around vision), with computer and satellite technology
serving as deliverer of information.4
The question arises, "How
virtual can music education become?" The technology is
now available to teach private lessons in piano and other instruments
via the Internet. Soon it will be possible to play with others
in an ensemble through Internet connections in real time. Indeed
it may be possible in the next century to attend a concert,
conduct, and rehearse a major ensemble without leaving one's
home.
New Approaches to Teaching
and Learning
While it would be foolish to put
all our eggs in the computer basket, this technology can be
used as a magnificent tool in allowing individual creativity
and pacing during the teaching/learning process and in providing
experiences with music of cultures where context is so important;
for example, where music is wedded to some rite of passage or
traditional ceremony.5
Thus, technology will provide more opportunities for music education
to be inclusive of every style and genre of music rather than
exclusive in exposing children only to music of the Western
European tradition.
It is a fact that students in
today's public schools are of many different ethnic origins
with diverse learning styles, that our American society today
is exposed to a wide variety of musics, and that many music
teachers are unprepared but willing to deal with both ethnic
and musical diversities. The question music educators are asking
is, "Can the musical preparation of future teachers include
not only the acquisitions of skills to work with a comprehensive
repertoire of music from the current popular and concert hall
musics of our own time, but also include the contemporary music
practices of the entire global village, and the music that comprises
the heritage of each community represented in our schools?"
The answer to this question may lie in a different approach
to teacher training, an approach relying on the development
of research and acquisition of information rather than one relying
on the mastery of specific content.
As more people enjoy increased
leisure time, schools will become round-the-clock and open-to-all-ages
institutions, replacing "age specific compulsory learning
institutions (called schools)." A learning society will
emerge, which means that most people will spend a great deal
of every day of their lives in some kind of learning environment.
There will be nothing that cannot be formally or informally
studied if the students are interested.6
Community centers will evolve
where people of all ages can gather to participate in music
ensembles. These centers may be at the current school buildings,
which will be open and functioning from dawn until late night.
The intergenerational involvement in music ensembles may begin
during the normal school day. For example, in Eugene, Oregon,
a retired 76-year-old pipe fitter is in his third year with
a middle school band. The eighth-graders he plays with no longer
see him as an oddity, but as an inspiration who plays the French
horn with a passion for music and thick fingers gnarled by a
lifetime of hard work. In addition, he is studying opera, the
piano, and the harmonica.7
Wilma Benson shared the following
description of the involvement of senior citizens at Pleasure
Ridge High School in Louisville, Kentucky:
The proliferation of knowledge
and the ease of accessibility to it will result in more interdisciplinary
approaches to learning and will require earlier starts to a
lifetime of learning. Educators will devote many hours of every
day organizing massive amounts of information into meaningful
content and providing ways for students to study this content
in some authentic context. As a result, music will be taught
across the curriculum from the beginning of schooling in early
childhood throughout the formal enrollment period. It will be
understood that music is and has been a vital and ubiquitous
part of society throughout history and no subject area will
be taught without its inclusion. This interdisciplinary approach
may even replace that of separate classes for music appreciation,
fine arts, music history, and so forth. Yet formal instruction
in music performance, both individual and ensemble, will continue
to be a means for self-expression and enjoyment as well as a
discipline requiring a team approach to obtain an artistic product.
New theories of learning that
hold that the mind constructs knowledge within constraints of
prior belief, experience, and understanding will result in new
ways to deliver information and assess learning. The "mind-boggling"
amount of accessible information may confirm the notion that
children "cannot simply accept new knowledge as a bank
accepts a deposit."9 As
a result, learning in formal settings will be more individualized
and will involve more team approaches. Collaborations among
music teachers, their students, and experts worldwide will form
to explore music of all cultures.
Fewer classroom teachers may be
needed, but there also might be an increase in the number of
people engaged in teaching and learning. In fact the tension
between formal and informal instruction may represent our greatest
challenge: Will there be fewer teachers in those subjects not
considered "essential?"
A major alternative to the traditional
structure of education could be an intellectual apprentice system.
Under such a system, any member of society—a manual laborer,
a journalism, a musician, an academic historian, a shop clerk,
or a mechanic—could become a teacher. These people would
simply choose to devote part of their time to the teaching of
the young. Students wishing to eschew the classroom for this
kind of apprentice system would have their portion of the publically
[sic] funded school budget returned to them as credits (a kind
of educational scrip, perhaps) with which teaching "masters"
could be paid.10
Behind the scenes, an industry
of programmers, multimedia specialists, and educators will produce
interactive scripts designed to stimulate and develop all minds
to the maximum of their potentials.
Classroom teachers will still
exist, since . . . there is no substitute for the human touch.
But they will act more as facilitators, making sure the student
is working on the right material, and that progress is being
made. They will challenge, guide and bring students to their
full potential as human beings, as individuals.11
These changes will require a dramatic
alteration in the role of the teacher. Historically, the teacher
has been viewed as an authority regarding subject matter, a
developer of curricular materials, an evaluator of student performance,
and a controller of classroom discipline. In the twenty-first
century, the teacher must become a knowledgeable navigator through
massive amounts of information, a task analyzer and organizer,
a collaborator with students in the development of subject matter
processes and products, and a creative evaluator of students'
achievements and attitudes. These qualities are often not found
in music experts who, although they have enormous reservoirs
of knowledge, do not understand how to organize and present
that information to students who have different backgrounds
and learning styles.
Concern for the quality of education
has stimulated the widespread demand for accountability in the
education profession. Several states have issued "report
cards" resulting in declarations that some schools have
failed to educate. These failing schools will be closed and
students attending them will be sent elsewhere.
Music education has fought long
and hard for the inclusion of music as part of the curriculum.
The creation and acceptance of the National Standards for Arts
Education12 are
significant steps toward accountability. Yet society's concern
for accountability traditionally goes through cycles, and efforts
to accommodate any "correct" cycle may be a moot issue
in the near future.
Regardless, we must go further.
Music educators, like other professional educators, must help
students and their parents understand and make the connection
between music and life. We must help students transfer what
they have learned in music to what they will do with it when
they leave the school setting. Teaching must include not only
musical concepts and skills, but also how those concepts and
skills can function for us through our lifetime. This blend
of information and application will be extremely important.
While we must continue our advocacy
efforts, it is perhaps time to redirect them. Instead of fighting
to save the same approaches and content (i.e., general music
in the elementary schools and ensembles in middle and high schools),
we must become accountable for making music an important part
of every person's life. We should maximize efforts to involve
all people in our communities in meaningful, functional music
listening and performing. If the community has access to a symphony
orchestra, then we should teach the repertoire that our students
will hear at those concerts. In addition, if the community is
an isolated, rural one where students will hear bluegrass or
country or gospel or any other popular genre, then we should
in our music ensembles and classes teach them how this music
“works.”
This approach to accountability
will involve more than reading and studying the many music textbooks,
music repertoire lists, and other available music materials.
It will involve also studying the preferences, experiences,
and needs of the communities we serve. Then we can effectively
proceed to both acculturate and lead our students forward to
a broader musical experience.
Michael Mark says:
